Find out how a restaurant menu price list can help or hurt the profitability and success of your restaurant.

If the goal of your restaurant is to make money, one of the ways you can turn this goal into a reality is by being strategic about the price list on your menu. On most restaurant menus, prices are placed in one uniform place, making it easy for customers to find and compare prices.

Prices are usually all lined up one side, all pushed off from the item name, or all lined up at the bottom of a paragraph. Additionally, they are often bolded, italicized, or in a different color so that they easily stand out.

Sell Food, Not Prices

When designing your restaurant menu price list, you should keep in mind that you are selling food, rather than prices. Customers are not coming to your restaurant to order a $14.99 with a side of $3.99. Instead, they are coming to order your delicious salmon and a side of fresh broccoli.

In addition, you should understand that making it easy for your customers to compare prices can take away from your profitability. Customers will be more likely to order your stuffed mushroom appetizer instead of your calamari if it’s clear that the mushroom appetizer is less expensive. If you’d like to sell more of your expensive menu items, your menu should not be designed in a way that promotes price comparison.

M+K Laux took a look at the menu of Biaggi’s, a popular casual Italian restaurant and found that it was designed in a way that encourages customers to compare prices. We decided to get rid of the price list in every category of their menu and tuck the prices into paragraphs without calling any attention to them. Thanks to this change, customers will be more likely to order the menu items they would prefer to eat instead of worrying about cost.

Take Advantage of a Menu Matrix

When working with restaurants to improve their menu, we like to promote a menu matrix which is a scatter graph that places each menu item into one of four categories. These categories include:

· Stars: Menu items with higher than average sales and profits.

· Puzzles: Menu items with higher than average profits but slow sales.

A menu matrix can help you understand how your restaurant customers view your menu and food. The matrix can also allow you to learn about your best growth opportunities.

Contact Laux Today

If you’d like to make sure your restaurant menu price list can help your restaurant rather than hurt it, it is in your best interest to contact M+K Laux today. We’ll evaluate your current menu and let you know how a menu matrix can improve it.

If your sales and service workers are like most, they are coin operated. You put a couple bucks into them and they show up and go through the motions. And if you’re like most business owners or managers, you’re probably always looking for ways to boost their sales performance. Here is one sure way to get your sales people to start paying attention, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg in the process.

Randomly reward desired behavior.

Yup, that’s it. But it must be completely random. Every once in awhile, when you see one of your sales doing something really over and above normal performance, walk up and give them a small token of your appreciation and tell them why. Maybe it’s a gift card from a convenience store, or a movie pass, or even a five dollar bill. But just walk up to them, tap them on the shoulder and thank them for doing a great job, point out the behavior that you thought was pretty terrific, and then hand them the gift and walk away.

But it has to be a completely random thing, and it works best when they don’t know you were watching them, and it has to be immediate. Then make it a game. Try to sneak up on your staff, both front of the house and back of the house. And again, make it completely random.

Why random? Because random rewards make the servers stay on game, because they never know when you’re watching them, and they know you’re sneaky (and they like it).

M+K Blog

Thoughts about marketing & life

Nirvana & The Ego

It's difficult to balance real spiritual growth with being in advertising. The two don't get along well. On the one side, advertising works best when it's a pure expression of the ego. And spiritual growth is looking inside and abandoning the ego. Huh, maybe I should be in a different business, right? I've thought about that. But I believe there is a way to use our skills in a productive and balanced way. So stay tuned, and we'll keep you updated on our progress.